


can't start a fire (without a spark)

by redbelles



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Baseball, F/M, Idiots in Love, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28135836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbelles/pseuds/redbelles
Summary: He turns toward Ginny and finds her grinning back at him, exhausted and sweaty and absolutely fucking beaming.Better than a championship,he thinks dazedly, and then, crystal clear on the heels of that revelation:fuck.
Relationships: Ginny Baker/Mike Lawson
Comments: 9
Kudos: 84
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	can't start a fire (without a spark)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cuits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cuits/gifts).



A no-hitter. 

Rookie pitcher, first woman in the majors, nothing but grit and that damn screwball, and she fucking did it: Ginny Baker threw a goddamn no-hitter. 

The crush in the locker room is insane, reporters and cameras everywhere, everyone desperate for a soundbite from her. Mike’s been in the MLB funhouse for years now, and on the Bakermania Express Train for nearly a full season, but this is a new level of crazy. It’s the kind of din he’s always imagined would come with a championship. Elation, disbelief; cameras everywhere; winning pitcher at his side, laughing as some jackass hollers for champagne. 

He hears Amelia veto that from somewhere off to his left, but it’s too late. Someone, probably Blip, pushes through the logjam of reporters surrounding them and shoves a bottle into his hands. 

“Age before beauty, Lawson! Help your rookie celebrate!” Christ. Definitely Blip.

The bottle is heavy and cool, wet with condensation, and he nearly drops the damn thing when he turns toward Ginny and finds her grinning back at him, exhausted and sweaty and absolutely fucking beaming. 

_Better than a championship,_ he thinks dazedly, and then, crystal clear on the heels of that revelation: _fuck._

He blasts her with champagne on autopilot, hosing her down until she shrieks and wrestles the bottle away from him, The locker room smells like booze and sweat. His knees ache. He’s so fucking proud of her he could burst. He’s staring. He knows he is, but he can’t do a damn thing about it. All he can do is watch her soak it all in as the world finally _sees_ her: not a flash in the pan, not some publicity stunt, but a real goddamn pitcher. A record-setting pitcher. 

It’s a good thing she’s distracted, because if the press are finally catching on, he’s looking at her like she’s hung the goddamn moon. He needs to get his shit together before some intrepid reporter snaps a picture of him looking like a lovesick idiot, panting after his teammate. After a girl who grew up with his poster on her wall. Hell, he’s—

Ginny flings an arm around his shoulders, abruptly derailing his train of thought. 

“Couldn’t have done it without the old man’s help,” she says. “Mike called a hell of a game.” Her fingers flex against his arm as she says his name, dancing along the edge of his sleeve and brushing his bare skin. Callused, sticky with champagne, the touch very nearly burns. _Jesus,_ he’s so fucked. 

“Oh please, Baker,” he says, aiming for breezy and missing by a mile. “This is your win. Your record. Own it, rook.”

It’s too sincere by half, but he can’t do anything about it now. Amelia steps in after a few more questions, plucking her out of the scrum and telling the reporters they can talk to her at the post-game presser, as usual. Ginny’s still sporting that blinding grin as she makes her escape, practically glowing with happiness.

_So fucked._

—

She’s trending on Twitter by the time he escapes the post-game madness. Of course she’s trending: first woman in the MLB, first no-hitter by a female pitcher. First no-hitter in Padres history. 

He feels like he’s been hit by a truck. Several trucks. A goddamn line of them, rolling over him like he’s a particularly useless speed bump. He’s a franchise player on a team that’s well out of contention. No-movement clause waived, knees shot to shit, replacement already in the system; he’d all but given up on milestones like a no-hitter, like a pennant, like a championship.

And now, out of the blue, a record lands in his lap, and he’s got Ginny Baker to thank. 

Ginny Baker and her radiant fucking smile, her arm around his shoulders, fingers warm against his skin, champagne, the memory of one stupid almost kiss—

He’s spent every day since then determinedly pretending it was nothing. The trade getting the better of him, maybe. A random impulse: one last wild, reckless stunt before he left for Chicago. All bullshit. 

But he’s a master of that kind of intentional self-deception. He’s had to be: couldn’t let a failing marriage affect his play, right? _You’re gonna let some stupid marital shit tank a Hall of Fame career?_ Had to put his faith in a team that barely managed to squeak into the playoffs, no matter how hard he worked. _Face of the damn franchise and you’re really gonna cut and run, head for greener pastures?_ Gotta convince himself his knees aren’t failing if he wants to last all nine innings, let alone a full season. _One hundred and sixty-two games, Lawson. Sure you’re up for it?_

One thing after another after another. It should be easy enough to tell himself the _spark_ with Ginny was just that: a spark. Fleeting. Easily extinguished. Nothing that would jeopardize his career, or god fucking forbid, hers.

And yet here he is, waiting for the rest of the team to filter out so they can celebrate with her, mind stuck on the long smooth line of her throat as she tipped her head back to chug the frothy remains of that goddamn champagne. 

Blip never would have given him the damn bottle if he knew Mike was thinking about getting his mouth all over that lovely brown skin, kissing the flutter of her pulse. Feeling her laugh. 

Wondering if she minds a little beard burn. Wondering—

He pumps the brakes on that train of thought, but like everything else about this whole situation, it’s too late. He’s picturing it, and then cursing himself for it. She’s _twenty-three._ She had his poster, he fucking knows she did, and he’s a sad, creepy old man for thinking about her in any context other than baseball. She’s his rookie, and god, _fuck_ , this is wrong on so many levels—

So it’s all bullshit, and he’s skeeved himself out. Fine. He can work with that. He’s a professional; he can compartmentalize. The rest of the boys have finally started spilling out of the locker room, laughing and joking, hollering about whatever club they’re going to take over tonight. It’s Ginny’s win, not his, but she was glowing; excited, happy, reveling in the shine of it all. It’d be shitty of him to bail. 

He dismisses the idea immediately. This is his mess. He’s not gonna let it bleed all over Ginny— all over _Baker._

So he sucks it the fuck up. He drives to the pretentious, faux-shabby bar the young guns have all decided on, nurses two decent lagers and one extremely shitty IPA. Makes sure to smile for Baker, claps her on the back, gives her some shit about her screwgie. Bows out once the boys start calling for shots, lets them rib him about being a tired old man. 

He goes home to his huge, empty house, pops a handful of Tylenol that will do absolutely nothing for the consistent throbbing in his knees and even less for the inevitable old man hangover, and climbs into his cold, empty bed. It’s fine. He’s fine. 

If he thinks about the press of her forehead against his, her breath fanning out across his mouth as they leaned into each other— well. It’s just the booze. 

—

It takes a couple weeks for the high of the no-hitter to wear off. September slides into October with the Padres last in the NL West. Baker boosted their ticket sales, brought more people into the park even as the summer wound down, but she couldn’t save their season. 

He doesn’t regret the way the Chicago trade fell through, but it stings. It always does. He’s got one more year left on his contract, but Duarte’s been burning up the minors; maybe he should just call it quits. 

But next year isn’t right now, and he’s still got a season to close out. They go out on a three game home stand, and he and Baker both watch from the dugout as a 3-2 loss wraps things up. Al shut her down a few games after her no-hitter, and he hasn’t been behind the plate since then. Knee shit. They keep pushing him to learn first base. 

_Fuck first base,_ he thinks bitterly, but he still puts on his captain’s face during locker room clean out and gives a decent ‘we’ll get ‘em next year’ speech. He’s got it down to a science now, focusing on each guy in turn as he calls out big plays, improvements over the course of the season, who still owes him a beer, et cetera et cetera. He’s just about done when his gaze finally comes to rest on Baker. He can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips; doesn’t quite manage to scrub it away as he drags a hand over his beard like he’s deep in thought. He powers through it instead, hams it up a little, pretends he’s trying to find something to say.

“Gonna give us another no-hitter next year, Baker?” 

The teams whistles and cheers, a brief moment of levity amidst the heartbreak of a failed season. 

She grins, sharp and bright. “I’ll throw as many as you can catch, old man.” 

His knees are swaddled in compression wraps beneath his sweats and there’s a brace waiting for him back at the house, but shit knees and better judgment and Livan Duarte and be damned, he knows he’s going to try and stay behind the plate for her. 

“All right, all right, rook. Guess we’ll see if you can keep up.”

Something hot and frustrated flashes across her face, there and gone in the space of a breath, but he can’t focus on it. _Compartmentalize._ He finishes up the speech, says his goodbyes to Al and the trainers, and peels out of the parking lot before Baker can corner him. 

_One more season,_ he tells himself. _Just keep it together ‘til then, and then you can mope and pine without ruining her goddamn life._

His knee cracks ominously as he shifts into third, the engine snarling as he roars back toward the house. 

One more season. He’s got this. 

—

It turns out he does not, in fact, have this.

Winter is California mild, as usual, but everything feels cold and jagged, somehow. Blip is busy with Evelyn and the boys, and Mike’s fling with Amelia has long since fizzled out. It was always going to, even before the whole Chicago thing. He’s just this side of washed up, and Amelia’s star is on the rise. Just like—

Anyway. He rattles around his big empty house, swimming endless laps in the pool and reading shitty mysteries, trying and failing to ignore the constant buzz about Duarte. He avoids sports radio, stays off of Twitter, hell, he even cancels his subscription to The Athletic, but it doesn’t help much. You can’t turn on a damn TV in the San Diego area without hearing about Padres and their bright new future. 

That future doesn’t include him, but he’s made his peace with that. One more season is all he’s got, and at this point, it’s all he wants. His knees ache and ache, even with all the low-impact shit he’s been doing to try and keep himself game-ready. 

He’s got a feeling they might not hold until October, if the Padres even make it that far. 

And they might not. Shiny new catcher or not, they’ve got a pitching problem. Baker puts bodies in seats, but she’s got a mid-range ERA, and the rest of the bullpen is about the same. If they go anywhere, it’ll be on the strength of the bats or the smarts of the signal-caller, and anyone in baseball can tell you runs are never a sure thing. Duarte’s good, but he doesn’t know the club the way Mike does, and he’s got no postseason experience. 

_Not like you’ve got much more than that, Lawson._

Still—

He rubs IcyHot into his knees, wincing a little at the familiar burn, and tries not to think about why he wants to be the one behind the plate. It’s the shit that blindsided him after Baker’s no-hitter. Playoffs. A championship. One last shot at October glory. 

It’s more than that. He could pretend otherwise, but there are only so many lies he can take.

Baker hasn’t talked to him much since clean out, just a few texts here and there. No late-night phone calls, no barging in on him to harangue him about whatever it was that made her angry. No almosts. 

So what if he DVRs the damn ESPN special they filmed about her season? So what if he gets that familiar hit by a truck feeling when he watches her talk about the no-hitter, how she’s so grateful to have a catcher she can trust in moments like that. How she’s excited for the future, but happy with the present. Trying to stay in the moment. 

So what if he scrolls through her Twitter, sends her a text or two. 

He can _want_ freely in the safety of his empty house, even if it makes him feel like a slimeball. Blip and Evelyn aren’t around to castrate him for it—and god knows Evelyn would—and since Amelia is spending the offseason managing some hotshot client in Boston, he’s free and clear of her terrifying ability to pick apart his life and his choices with just a few sharp words. And Baker…

Well, that’s the crux of it, isn’t it?

At least, it is until his phone starts going off during a session in the pool, chiming with a flurry of incoming texts, one, two, three, four. They just keep coming; either he’s just been traded and the “holy shit” texts are rolling in, or someone has a goddamn lot to say to him.

He levers himself out of the pool and heads for his phone without even bothering to grab a towel. That turns out to be a mistake, because the person blowing up his messages is Baker— is _Ginny._

**hey mike, u around?**

**actually, no**

**fuck that**

**months of silence, and now you’re going through my twitter?**

**is that just captain shit? checking up on your rookie?**

**you do that with everyone, or am i special?**

The phone slips through his hands, clattering to the concrete. His fingers are still wet—oh god, _fuck,_ redirect—and he makes a hasty grab for the towel before scrambling for the phone. The screen’s a little fucked up, but the thing is still pinging away.

_Your rookie._

The phrase sears through him, burning like a physical touch. Something churns low and hot in his gut. He shoves it aside and starts typing out a reply even as her texts keep rolling in. 

**it’s not fair. you know that, right?**

**all that chicago shit, the fucking no-hitter, and then you just ignore me like i’m** —

**…**

He doesn’t want to see her finish that sentence. He’s heard her muttering shit to herself in the dugout when games go sideways, shit like _robot in cleats_ and _useless_ and _gimmick,_ and he’s abruptly furious with himself. Furious and _ashamed_ ; he was so hell-bent on keep his bullshit clear of her, so fucking focused on _she’s twenty-three_ that he missed the forest for the goddamn trees. 

She’s twenty-three, and he’s her captain, her mentor, her catcher. He’s supposed to have her fucking back, and he just up and stopped talking to her. 

_Christ, Lawson,_ he thinks, gripping the phone hard enough to make it creak. _You fucking idiot._

It’s hard to type with the way his hands are shaking, but he manages. 

**Baker**

No, no.

**Ginny. I know I fucked up. Come over and let me apologize?**

Those horrible “typing” dots flash for a few seconds, then vanish. One minute stretches into two, then five. 

No answer. 

He sinks down onto one of the loungers Rachel insisted on buying and he never got around to getting rid of, chest aching as badly as his knees. He wants to step out into traffic and let a truck take an actual run at him. He’s fucked this up—fucked _Ginny_ up—so badly, and he’s got no way to fix it. He won’t harass her if she doesn’t want to talk to him, but god, he wants to. He wants to explain the months of silence. The Twitter shit. 

Hell, he wants to show her his goddamn DVR; the ESPN special is the only thing he’s got saved, and that’s honestly kind of pathetic, but he doesn’t care. He just doesn’t want her hurting because of him. 

Mike’s still parked in the lounger, reaming himself out for a winter of stupid fucking choices when the doorbell chimes. He ignores it. It chimes again, and then his phone dings once more.

**answer your fucking door, lawson**

—

He’s not a complete idiot, sohe jumps up and answers the fucking door.

It’s only afterward that he stalls, standing there, knees singing from the quick sprint to the door, dripping water all over the floor while Ginny just sort of— stares. She blushes just a little bit, and _fuck,_ so does he, but then she sobers again. 

“You said something about an apology?”

“Yeah. Yeah, come in, just let me—”

“—put some clothes on. Yeah, that’d be good.”

He is not at all prepared to examine why she can shoot the shit with him while he’s in compression shorts getting worked over by the training staff, but the sight of him in some old swim trunks has her blushing and asking him to locate some clothing. He just. Isn’t prepared for that. 

When he comes back, dressed in some Padres sweats and a ratty old muscle tank that’s seen better days, she’s perched on the sofa, expressionless as he’s ever seen her. It doesn’t matter. He can read her on the mound, and he sure as shit can read her now. 

She looks young, and resigned, and horribly alone. 

_I did that,_ he thinks. He wants to kick his own ass. 

“Baker,” he starts, then cuts himself off. “Ginny. I’m so sorry.” 

He wants to sit down beside her, but that seems too intimate—too close to the kind thing he would have done with Rachel, back before everything fell apart—so instead, he just sort of stands awkwardly in front of her, like some asshole teenager trying to work up the guts to apologize. 

Mike says as much, and that pulls a small smile from her. 

“Well, the asshole part is right.”

“Harsh, Baker.”

“Back to Baker, huh?” 

Something complicated happens on her face. It’s the same expression he saw at locker cleanout, the one he told himself he couldn’t parse. More bullshit. It’s… longing. Fragile, shuttered, but clear as day now that he’s not bullshitting himself anymore. It’s a bruised shadow of the look on her face in the moment before his phone rang. They’re in the same goddamn boat.

He’s her teammate. Her _captain_. More than a decade her senior. He should have the wherewithal to say no, to put a stop to this before it ever starts, but he’s already tried that, hasn’t he? Look where it’s gotten them. 

“Should be,” he says, giving up and dropping down beside her on the couch. “We should be back to Baker, but that’s not— I don’t—” Fuck. “Ginny, I—” 

“Don’t strain yourself, Lawson,” she snaps, voice just the slightest bit wobbly. “I know I overstepped, I know the Chicago shit was a mistake—”

“It wasn’t a mistake. And stop calling it the Chicago shit, you’re gonna give me a complex.” He rubs a hand over his face, trying to scrounge up the right words. This shouldn’t be any harder than a locker room speech, but it is. It’s so much harder. 

No wobble now, but her voice is small and angry. “It sure fucking felt like a mistake.”

He sighs. “I was leaving. One kiss— one, I don’t know, one night before I left wasn’t gonna fuck up your career. Wasn’t gonna wreck the rest of your time with the Padres. We were going to be in different divisions, and there was a better than even chance I’d call it quits after that. No point putting any more miles on these knees if I had a ring, you know?”

The Cubs went all the way. A century, ten innings, and a damn rain delay, but they did it. He watched them win from the couch, right there where Ginny’s sitting now. He doesn’t regret it—not much, anyway—but Ginny winces and drops her gaze to the floor.

“But the phone rang.”

“The phone rang, and I was staying here.” He knocks his knee against hers, and she yanks her gaze back to his face. All thoughts of a coherent, mature speech die away; he just wants her to stop looking so damn sad. 

“Jesus, Baker, you’ve gotta know I’ve wanted to kiss you every damn day since then.” He reaches for her hand as he says it, and she lets him lace their fingers together. He feels like he’s picked up a live wire. He feels like he’s back in the locker room, stone-cold sober but somehow still drunk on the glitter of champagne and that brilliant smile of hers. The moment when he just _knew._

She’s gripping his hand like she’s afraid he’s going to disappear on her. Tell a joke, brush it off, pull away again. He squeezes back. It’s her throwing arm; her fingers are covered in the unique callus pattern that comes from throwing screwballs day in and day out. The only concession to the offseason is the nail polish, a bright mustard yellow. 

Padres yellow. He wants to kiss her so badly. 

“Baker…” he trails off, voice unexpectedly hoarse. _Smooth, Lawson._

She’s the brave one. She has been from the start. 

“Gotta call me Ginny if you wanna kiss me.”

“Alright,” he says. “Alright, Ginny,” and then he’s kissing her, or she’s kissing him, crawling into his lap and settling there like it’s nothing. It’s everything, but it makes his hips ache just thinking about it. Luckily, he doesn’t have to think about it for long. He’s in sweats and she’s in some stupid thin training shorts, that Nike endorsement or whatever, and jesus _fuck_ why does this house have so many damn windows?

“Baker,” he pants into her mouth, “Ginny, honey, slow down—”

She swirls her tongue against his, deliciously filthy, and pulls back with a satisfied grin. “Nope.” Then her smile falters. “Unless—”

It’s his turn to protest. “No, no, nope, we are all systems go. Just take pity on an old man and help me up off the couch.”

She does, but not before she ducks down and sucks what promises to be a truly impressive hickey just below the edge of his beard. Which, yeah, okay. He can work with this.

In one quick move he picks her up and throws her over his shoulder. She’s heavy, a pro athlete’s worth of muscle, and his knees are going to hate him for it, but it’s worth it to hear her shriek. 

“Lawson! Mike, what the hell!” There’s nothing but laughter in her voice; he can’t see her face, but he’d bet every penny of his salary that she’s grinning again, that radiant smile he can’t get enough of. He’s never cared less about his goddamn knees. 

He throws her onto the bed, still laughing, and lets himself look at her, long and lean and smiling so wide her cheeks must hurt. He’s so fucked.

“I mean, yeah,” she says, smirking. Jesus, he said that out loud. 

“I said that out loud.”

“You said that out loud. Though I was kinda hoping it would be the other way around. At least to start with,” she says, bold as brass. He pretty much _has_ to kiss her for that, so he does, dropping down on top of her and drinking her in like he’s starved for it. They could have been doing this for months. He’s so fucking stupid. 

_Later, Lawson._

And there will be a later. They’ve got so much shit to talk about: what this is, what it isn’t, what it means for the season. All the baggage Rachel left behind. Why Ginny calls herself a robot in cleats, because there is no goddamn way he’s letting that slide. But that’s later. Now, she’s wriggling beneath him, trying to yank her tank top—Nike, of course—off. Impatient. It makes him want to take his time. Drive her crazy.

He nips at those plush lips of hers, teasing, and laughs when she whines into his mouth. 

“C’mon, Mike, don’t leave me hanging.”

“I’ve got you, Ginny. I swear.” He mouths his way down to the crook of her neck, the hollow of her collarbones, feeling her shiver as he goes. “But first, I need to know: how do you feel about beard burn?”

—

The end of September finds them in the wild card race, squeaking into the playoffs on the strength of Ginny’s arm in their final regular season game. 

Ice baths don’t do much for the pain anymore, but he’ll be damned if the Padres have to call up Duarte _now._ They’re in the dance this year. He can handle some pain if it means a shot at a championship with Ginny.

Her smile is bright as the fucking sun when she waltzes into the recovery room as he’s marinating in the cooler. 

“We did it, Lawson,” she says, voice warm as her smile. 

“You’re damn right we did.”

He’s Lawson during the season; she’s Baker. They’re teammates, nothing more. It’s worked out pretty well so far, even if he has to stop himself from calling her _Ginny_ when she beams like that, stop himself from grabbing her hand after games, stop himself from kissing her just for being Ginny Baker. The postseason means a few more weeks—or more, if they’re lucky—of strict professionalism, but that’s alright with him.

Ginny seems to agree. She ruffles his hair as he finishes up his soak, just this side of too affectionate, and throws another blinding grin at him over her shoulder as she saunters out. “Rest up, old man. We’ve got work to do.”

“Yeah, yeah, rook. I’ll see you at practice.”

He’ll see her before then, tonight probably, FaceTime or a phone call, just a few minutes where they can be Ginny and Mike before they have to start prepping for the wild card game, but those few minutes will carry them through the postseason.

He’s got faith. He’s got something better, even; he’s got Ginny. 

—

They take the field beneath the stadium lights on what passes for a crisp fall evening in southern California. 

“Alright, Baker," he says over the noise of the team, the deafening roar of the fans. It comes out rock solid, steady as it's ever been. This is their year. He can feel it. "Here we go.”

Ginny smiles, beaming, brighter than the shine of the lights, and slaps his ass as they jog out of the dugout together.

October stretches out in front of them, golden and glorious and full of promise. It won’t last forever—nothing ever does—but for now, there’s baseball to play. 

**Author's Note:**

> happy yuletide, cuits!
> 
> i know you said you didn't need a ton of sports stuff, but, uh: i'm physically incapable of shutting up about sports, so you get some anyway! i hope the rest of the fic balances out all the baseball nerd nonsense :)
> 
> though this was written almost exclusively to springsteen's "glory days," the title was yanked from "dancing in the dark," because i am simultaneously a bruce springsteen fan, a parody of myself, and a fool who couldn't pass up the pun ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
